The Second Coming

Praise

“A gritty epic about a teen girl in trouble and her estranged father looking for a second chance.” —Boston Globe
 
“Dazzling . . . Heartfelt . . . The dance of life and death between these two characters, father and child, is the heart and soul of this book, a complex, moving, insanely passionate, frightening, and weirdly hopeful story of ‘I can’t quit you’ . . . Hallberg is a smart and talented writer who likes to take risks.” —Helen Schulman, Air Mail
 
“Hallberg’s novel takes its place in a lineage [with] Don DeLillo’s 1997 epic Underworld and Jonathan Franzen’s densely woven family dramas . . . It’s a big, attractively baroque construction.” —Wall Street Journal
 
“Exuberantly inventive . . . The author’s spot-on wit remains playfully evident.” —Thomas Mallon, The New Yorker

“Hallberg’s great theme is the tension between how we see ourselves and how others see us—and how this dynamic is compounded by the workings of family . . . Genuinely moving . . . His linguistic virtuosity has been widely admired. Evidence of this abounds in The Second Coming . . . This is richly pictorial writing that lends itself to novelistic world-building . . . The novel offer[s] a rich engagement with a wide range of literature and pop culture . . . Hallberg’s writing has an infinite quality.” —Literary Review

“A blazing novel . . . Hallberg’s second novel is less socioeconomically ranging than his first, City on Fire, and will thus prompt fewer comparisons with Charles Dickens, but he won’t shake the association altogether . . . The combination of voices provides a lovely sub-bass to the novel . . . father is always speaking to daughter, or daughter to father . . . Words are not just a means to the story, but an end in themselves, ignited for the sake of seeing how they burn. And over 600 pages they burn wondrously, banishing irritation at the book’s faults and casting a light that makes even our man-boy [hero] seem fresh and engaging.” —Times Literary Supplement
 
“Hallberg writes from a place of keen emotional perception.” —Interview Magazine

“Hallberg’s a born wordsmith, his sentences limning his characters’ vulnerabilities, with visuals that tick a reader’s pulse.” —Hamilton Cain, Minneapolis Star Tribune
 
“The tale of two vivid, damaged characters . . . Full of brilliant writing . . . It races down avenues of sparkling prose . . . [There are] flashes of Hallberg’s virtuoso sensibility on display throughout. He treats us to one absolute cracker of an observation after another.” —Irish Times

“At its core, this is a tale of the love that makes a family and how it does so.” —Booklist (starred review)

“Tremendous storytelling.” —i news (Best New Books, July)

“A bravura performance.” —Mail on Sunday (Ireland)

“Reading Garth Risk Hallberg is a constant delightful surprise—you never know what’s coming next: a gorgeous turn of phrase, a perfect pop culture reference, a brilliant new observation, a jaw-dropping plot twist. And all of these gifts are on full display in The Second Coming, a story about a father bound up by his mistakes, a daughter bound up in her silence, and a family in need of saving. It’s a beautiful and daring novel, as inventive as it is breathtaking.” —Nathan Hill, author of Wellness

“A portrait of a daughter in crisis and a father in need of redemption, Garth Risk Hallberg’s The Second Coming is a powerful statement about the clarifying sense of purpose to be found in parental love, and how we demand more of ourselves for the sake of our children. Hallberg’s Ethan is a fascinating study in whether a certain kind of arrested American male, consumed early on by purposelessness and addiction, can in fact have a second act, even if his first is still, somehow, belatedly, being written, and not entirely by him.” —Matthew Thomas, author of We Are Not Ourselves

“Garth Risk Hallberg’s The Second Coming is a sprawling, aching, ultimately hopeful account of a father’s love for a daughter and a daughter’s defiance of that love when all too often it manifests as dysfunction. Hallberg deals with the dilemma of parental inheritance with a light touch, and the grace that finally descends on the Aspern clan is not only transformative but triumphant.” —Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End

“Garth Risk Hallberg’s great gift is his ability to translate epic themes into intensely intimate, cumulatively powerful novels. Full of tension and emotion and populated by vivid characters and ideas, The Second Coming builds word by word to capture the intricacies of life while revealing its own breathtaking scope. This is a world you can fully enter and explore—one that resembles our own while expanding our understanding of who we are.” —Christina Baker Kline, author of #1 New York Times best seller Orphan Train